Sandy-recovered snapshots posted on Facebook in search of owners

Nov. 26, 2012

Photo found in Union Beach after superstorm Sandy. / Photo courtesy of the For Shore Photo Project

Written by

The bride in this photo was identified as Linda Laymon of Bay Head.

Saving storm-damaged photos

Most photos, negatives and color slides can be cleaned and air-dried using the following steps: ■Carefully lift the photos from the mud and dirty water. Remove photos from water-logged albums and separate any that are stacked together, being careful not to rub or touch the wet emulsion of the photo surface. ■Gently rinse both sides of the photo in a bucket or sink of clear, cold water. Don't rub the photos and be sure to change the water frequently. ■If you have time and space right away, lay each wet photo face up on any clean blotting paper, such as a paper towel. Don't use newspapers or printed paper towels, as the ink may transfer to your wet photos. Change the blotting paper every hour or two until the photos dry. Try to dry the photos inside if possible, as sun and wind will cause photos to curl more quickly. ■If you don't have time right away to dry your damaged photos, just rinse them to remove any mud and debris. Carefully stack the wet photos between sheets of wax paper and seal them in a Ziploc type plastic bag. If possible, freeze the photos to inhibit damage. This way photos can be defrosted, separated and air-dried later when you have the time to do it properly. Source: For Shore Photos Project

This photo found after superstorm Sandy was identified as the 1999 tennis team at Point Pleasant Beach High School after it was posted on Facebook. / Photo courtesy of the For Shore Photo Project

More

ADVERTISEMENT

We had been meaning to put them in albums, to get them framed, to back them up to that Internet cloud thing.

Instead, they were stashed in shoe boxes and sock drawers, forgotten in boxes in the basement, pinned under refrigerator magnets, pressed between the pages of dog-eared paperbacks.

Superstorm Sandy found them.

By the untold thousands, the storm turned photos into flotsam, scattering smiling, mud-splattered faces across a bereft landscape.

“You look at these photos of people holding babies, getting married, on vacation, holding their pets,” said Susan Snyder, 49, of Keyport, who found snapshots stuck in hedges and a chain-link fence while volunteering to help an elderly storm victim in Union Beach.

“They took these pictures for a reason, to hold onto these memories, and now these memories get sucked out to sea,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Invaluable to us and our loved ones, and worthless to virtually everybody else, photos are among our most precious and precarious possessions. In a fast-moving world that can sometimes spin out of control, a snapshot, however blurry or embarrassing, stops the Earth on its axis, if only for an instant.

Homes, boats, furniture and appliances can all be replaced. Photos can’t.

But they can be found, cleaned up, dried out and returned to those who lost them.

Lost and found

Esti, 48, is among those using social media to identify photos and other belongings recovered after the storm, in hopes of reuniting them with their owners.

In the past two weeks, her For Shore Photo Project Facebook page (www.facebook.com/forshorephotos) has attracted thousands of visitors and scores of recovered photos. There are other post-Sandy lost and found sites on the web, but Esti has gone a step further by lining up Shore area businesses to act as drop-off locations and arranging for free photo scanning and restoration services. A photo gathering party is also in the works.

(Page 2 of 3)

“The outpouring for this, I have no words for,” Esti said. “It’s been one of the most truly rewarding experiences of my life.”

Esti, who now lives in Bristol, R.I., says she “grew up with sand in my pants.” Her parents, who were in Florida at the time of the storm, own a bayside home in the Curtis Point section of Brick, just south of Mantoloking.

Her first thought upon learning of the destruction to the barrier island was of the family photographs and Christmas ornaments that might have been lost in the storm. She eventually made her way to Curtis Point and found the home and its contents secure, but other homeowners in the area weren’t as fortunate.

It wasn’t long after she began inspecting the damage to the neighborhood that she began finding photos amid the debris. While she was gathering them up, the police rolled by, wondering what she was up to. When she told them, she said, they got out and started picking up photos, too.

As a professional life coach and business consultant, Esti has a knack for envisioning avenues of possibilities where others see only a dead end. Her initial thought to focus on finding photos in Curtis Point quickly evolved into a broader initiative, and the For Shore Photo Project was born.

The Facebook page, and a companion website, www.forshorephotos.com, include instructions for how to handle and post photos, as well as a list of drop-off sites where photos are being collected.

The first few success stories were all the motivation Esti needed.

“Found this photo on the beach a few days after the storm near Osborne Ave in Bay Head,” reads one posting, linked to a photo of two men on a boat. “Although a bit beat up, I'd love to return it to its owner. Anyone recognize these two?”

Sure enough, Doreen Hughes Bhandiwad did.

“This is my Dad & Bro-in-law!!! Thx for posting!!!” she replied.

Another photo, a portrait of a bride found near the Mantoloking Bridge, was identified as Linda Laymon, of Bay Head. Laymon said the photo belonged to her in-laws, whose Mantoloking home was swept away in the storm.

(Page 3 of 3)

“Somebody just found their bathroom, which was completely intact,” Laymon said.

Another post reads: “I found these at the dead end of Bay Ave near the Shelter Cove Beach” in Toms River.

“That’s me and my friends,” replied Cristina Varriale.

Another poster, named William Ward, also recognized a familiar face.

“That little kid in the red and overalls, that would be me!” he wrote.

A measure of comfort

After collecting that first batch of lost photos in Union Beach, Susan Snyder learned of Esti’s site and a similar Facebook initiative, started by Shannon Swift of Toms River, called Hurricane Sandy’s Lost Treasures, that focuses on other types of possessions.

Snyder is now actively involved in promoting both efforts. At the moment, she has a batch of 200 recovered photos that were dropped off at the Union Beach Police Headquarters drying in her spare bedroom. Once she’s posted them, she plans to get more.

“You hear all these stories from people who lost everything,” said Snyder, whose own home was unharmed. “You just want to do something.”

Among the still-unclaimed photos on Esti’s site is one that sisters Katie Tamborini and Heather Vinick stumbled upon amid the charred rubble of Camp Osborn on the barrier island in Brick. The snapshot is of two women and a man on the beach. Judging by their vibrantly colored bathing suits and hairstyles, the photo might have been taken in the 1960s.

Vinick, 38, of the Sewell section of Mantua in Gloucester County, said her family has owned a pair of summer homes at Camp Osborn going back at least four generations. Both were obliterated by the storm surge and the subsequent gas fires that ravaged the area.

“We found what may have been a piece of our sheets. But it was burned. That’s it,” Vinick said.

Tamborini, 35, of Point Pleasant, found a figurine of a shepherd that she posted online. Within minutes, a relieved neighbor claimed it. Part of a collection, it was worth $400, Vinick said.

Vinick said she’d be thrilled if someone found something of hers, however small.

“The entire island looks like the apocalypse,” she said. “So just finding anything that says, ‘Hey, we really were here for the past hundred years’... it’s pretty emotional.”